"War, Fascism, concentration camps, rubber truncheons, atomic bombs, etc., are what we daily think about, and therefore to a great extent what we write about, even when we do not name them openly. We cannot help this. When you are on a sinking ship, your thoughts will be about sinking ships." --George Orwell (1903-1950)[Thanks to Alex Constantine @ http://aconstantineblacklist.blogspot.com/]

Sunday, January 4

Another sordid account of the state of American post-9/11 civil rights: Is a visit to Cuba in your immediate future, you terrorist*?

This following story of "fascism-gone-wild" appeared Sunday in the 4 January 2009 edition of the Washington Post. Has what "started in 2005 with routine preparations for the scheduled executions of two men on death row" now mushroomed in Maryland into witch hunts for those who pose pointedly intelligent questions to business leaders and their lapdog government officials?

Intelligence officers created a voluminous file on Norfolk-basedPeople for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, calling the group a"security threat" because of concerns that members would disrupt thecircus. Angry consumers fighting a 72 percent electricity rateincrease in 2006 were targeted. The DC Anti-War Network, which opposesthe Iraq war, was designated a white supremacist group, withoutexplanation.

One of the possible "crimes" in the file police opened on AmnestyInternational, a world-renowned human rights group: "civil rights."... (read more)

It gets worse.

In October 2006, veteran journalist Robert Parry, a former Associated Press and Newsweek reporter who linked many of the mid-1980s Iran-Contra drugs-for-arms connections to the Reagan and Bush White Houses, warned us that passage of the Military Commission Act of 2006--"a travesty...of kangaroo courts"--ensures that an official designation of "terrorist" will result in banishment of all civil rights--an end to habeous corpus, denied access to an attorney, indefinite incarcertation for the duration of Bush's bogus "war on terror":

At a crimped ceremony in the East Room of the White House, President George W. Bush signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 while sitting behind a sign reading “Protecting America.”

On the surface, the law sets standards for harsh interrogations, prosecutions and executions of supposed terrorists and other “unlawful combatants,” including al-Qaeda members who allegedly conspired to murder nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001.

“It is a rare occasion when a President can sign a bill he knows will save American lives,” Bush said. “I have that privilege this morning.”

But the new law does much more. In effect, it creates a parallel “star chamber” system of criminal justice for anyone, including an American citizen, who is suspected of engaging in, contributing to or acting in support of violent acts directed against the U.S. government or its allies anywhere on earth.

The law strips “unlawful combatants” and their alleged fellow-travelers of the fundamental right of habeas corpus, meaning that they can’t challenge their imprisonment in civilian courts, at least not until after they are brought before a military tribunal, tried under special secrecy rules and then sentenced....(read more)

When MSNBC's Countdown host Keith Obermanm concluded an interview with George Washington University constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley about MCA's draconian assault on constitutional liberties, Olbermann half-jokingly told his guest "I'll see you at Gitmo,*" a reference to Amerikka's post-9/11 detention facility for "terrorists" at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba notorious for incarcerating and torturing the innocent.

After some initial posturing, the 110th "Dem-controlled" congress chose not to rescind that egregious piece of last-gasp fascist legislation a GOP-controlled congress passed before 2006 midterm elections banished them from congressional majority control.

(So tell me again how the 110th Congress differed from its 109th predecessor?)

But, hey: Uncle Obama and the flea-bitten Demo-nags in charge of the 111th Congress will save the day and reverse all the Bushita Brown-shirted civil justice...right? (thickly sarcastic cynicism...)

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*See this touristy t-shirt "insurgency": "Guantanamo Baycome for the beaches ... stay for the waterboarding."

"Yes, it's true. No more 11 hour trips to Cuba via Canada. Now you can get a direct flight on the taxpayer's dime! Just yelling something like "Down with the Infidel!" in a local airport should do the trick.